Some thoughts on Delay Repay

[whole diary]

[grahame]

I'm not a great lover of the "compensation society" and at times feel that "these things happen" and a shrug of the shoulders, acceptance of an apology and getting on with things is far better and more pragmatic that chasing restitution. However, I'm now routinely requesting "Delay Repay" where I have a journey that's delayed into what the industry and its regulators have declared as the "yellow" and "red" zones. Partly on principle that it's an element of the way franchises are now costed, and partly because by everyone using the mechanism, it might (just might) be another way of helping persuade the rail industry to become more relaible - which has been our top concern.

Sadly, I have now experience (or am developing experience) of the systems of Great Western Railway (GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)), South Western Railway (SWR^» (South Western Railway - about)), CrossCountry, LNWR^▸ (London North Western Railway) and ScotRail.  Wish I wasn't

Last night, I waited 45 minutes on a very cold and windy platform in greater Glasgow suburb when the train I had planned to catch was cancelled, and the following one was a few minutes late.  Yes, there was a platform shelter of sorts, but the moisture-laden wind howled all around and under and over the side panels and it offered little protection.  I took most of the evening to thaw out. If Scotrail admit to my arrival being over 30 minutes late, I will get the princley sum of £1.10 in compensation. And yet, the same delay on a CrossCountry service from Cheltenham Spa to Motherwell - delayed in comfort on the train, and with a long distance journey which didn't lead to an immediate appointment brought me the best part of £30 last year. What an odd system we have where the repayment is in proportion to the fare paid, and not to the delay time nor to the pleasantness or otherwise of where it places the passenger.


Edit: VickiS - Clarifying acronyms

[froome]

Sadly it is almost inevitable that any compensation scheme will not mirror the problems it is attempting to compensate for. The worst delays are often for short journeys where no compensation will match the misery that the passenger may have had to go through. And some of the worst experiences on train journeys don't involve long delays at all, but constant overcrowding leading to extreme discomfort in every journey made.

I have put in claims for about half of the journeys that I could have claimed for, as it just wasn't worth the effort of making a claim for the others. But the experiences from the different Train Operating Company's (TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company)) vary widely. I have just had two emails from Transport for Wales to tell me that my claim to them has been received and is being dealt with, something I've never had from Great Western Railway (GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)) or other companies. And, as I related elsewhere, my only claim to Cross Country, which was for a 2 hour delay on a ticket that cost almost £100, led to no response ever being received by me, so no recompense or any indication as to whether they received the claim or not, and no information anywhere about how to follow that up.



Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronyms

[Sixty3Closure]

I've already covered it (moaned?) in the other thread but my experience of Great Western Rail (GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)) processes weren't great. I think of myself as reasonably Information Technology (IT) literate but it put me off. I wonder if that's deliberate but then even on our internal intranet there are so many badly designed webpages that I think its endemic in the web industry.

Another aspect is the small but persistent delays.

At the moment I get 5 or 10% for the small but regular delays on my commute in Thames Valley. Under delay/repay I assume I'd get nothing for my train being 5-10 mins late everyday on a 30 min journey?


Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronyms

[ChrisB]

You have discovered one of the downsides to delay/reapy....in that the charter discount for seasons disappears & thus regular delays under 15 minutes gets you nothing, rather than a 5% discount on renewal

[Oxonhutch]

I have been keeping a heck on the arrivals of all my usual trains into Paddington during my morning commute (sad, I know!), and my 5% discount (last year 10%) by far outweighs any delay repay compensation.

[IndustryInsider]

You have discovered one of the downsides to delay/reapy....in that the charter discount for seasons disappears & thus regular delays under 15 minutes gets you nothing, rather than a 5% discount on renewal

Rather unusually(?) Great Western Rail (GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)) continues to operate the old system for season tickets for the time being.

I have been keeping a heck on the arrivals of all my usual trains into Paddington during my morning commute (sad, I know!), and my 5% discount (last year 10%) by far outweighs any delay repay compensation.

That will be the case on some routes.  Don’t forget others will be getting no 5% discount and so delay repay will be better for them.  It might not be perfect but it’s much fairer.

Edit : VickiS - Clarifying Acronyms

[Sixty3Closure]

I think Delay/Repay is good for infrequent travellers but not so much for commuters. If I only travel once or twice a month then claiming for those individual journeys isn't too bad (ignoring poor websites) but as daily traveller really not looking forward to it.

Can't think how you would do it but perhaps some mechanism that kicks in after a certain number of journeys are late on a specific route? As ChrisB points out when we move to delay/repay some groups will miss out.

Adding to my wish list it shouldn't be impossible to have single website run by someone like Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC^» (Association of Train Operating Companies See - here)) or even Network Rail. So far as I can tell all train companies use the same data for lateness and have (or will have) the same Terms and Conditions (T&Cs)? Might help when Grahame is trying to work out which of several companies to claim from.


Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronyms

[RailCornwall]

I've done one 'for the hell of it' on a £2.20 return using a D&C Railcard between Perranwell and Falmouth following the line hiatus recently. I was 30mins late back as a result. Using a M Ticket it was quick to process at my end.

Here's the timescales I experienced to get a 55p refund back ...

MON 18 NOV 2019 - 1450 - Delayed Journey
MON 18 NOV 2019 - 1700 - Submitted Claim
MON 18 NOV 2019 - 1800 - Acknowledged
WED 27 NOV 2019 - 2000 - Claim Accepted
WED 27 NOV 2019 - 2102 - Payment Advice
MON 02 DEC 2019 - 0002 - Payment received in Bank Account.

Reasonable turnaround, which might have been shorter if the payment in wasn't delayed due to a weekend.

Happy with the experience.

[rogerw]

Similar experience with South Western Railway (SWR^» (South Western Railway - about)) on a disrupted journey to Waterloo.  Money was in my account 7 days later. Journey 15th November, money in account 22nd November.

Edit: VickiS -Clarifying Acronyms

[Richard Fairhurst]

I tried Delay Repay today for the first time on the way back from Worcester. The conductor was proactive in encouraging people to use it from their phones on the train.

Unfortunately... the on-train wifi wasn't up to the task of uploading the ticket. I tried numerous times and got "Your ticket took too long to save, please check your internet speed and try again". My internet speed? It's your internet speed, Great Western Railway (GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway))!

A quick Twitter thread confirmed I'm not the only person who's had this issue. I'm guessing that the code is uploading the full-resolution photo, and that the connection is baulking on the size of this. It's actually quite easy these days for a webpage to automatically shrink/compress the image on the phone before uploading - maybe something Great Western Railway´s (GWR)'s web developers could look at.


Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronyms

[RailCornwall]

Into my fourth claim, one rejected because I could have used an alternative Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit)) that arrived before my delayed Intercity Express Train (IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train)) that I was 'scheduled' to take, symantics but it irked. Two paid out as expected, number four in yesterday due to missed connection at St Erth. We'll see how that one materialises. The Electronic Tickets (MTickets) need to have added the eight character booking reference numbers and price paid on them though, It would make the process much easier.


Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronyms

[RailCornwall]

Into my fourth claim, one rejected because I could have used an alternative DMU^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) that arrived before my delayed IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) that I was 'scheduled' to take, symantics but it irked. Two paid out as expected, number four in yesterday due to missed connection at St Erth. We'll see how that one materialises. The MTickets need to have added the eight character booking reference numbers and price paid on them though, It would make the process much easier.

Urrrrm .... I am into appeal phase ....  This could be interesting.

[Phantom]

Hi everyone

I am looking for some assistance please.
My sister and her family were delayed on a journey from Gloucester back to Worle on Thursday 2nd January 2020.
They submitted the online claim, but have just been told their claim is unsuccesful as their delay was only 3 minutes

I know that this is incorrect as I met them on the same train from Bristol Temple Meads and the train was over 20 minutes late
I looked on the realtime trains tracker, but that only goes back 7 days.

Is there anywhere else I can advice her to look which will detail the exact delay?

Thank you in advance

[grahame]

Is there anywhere else I can advice her to look which will detail the exact delay?

Recent Train Times - https://www.recenttraintimes.co.uk .   You haven't told us the time of day but I guess afternoon ... per chance the train scheduled to leave Temple Meads at 16:27 and get to Worle at 16:51, but only arrived at 17:09 that day?



See ((here)) for that particular search result.

[stuving]

There were others - like the 1816 from Bristol Temple Meads (BRI^» (Bristol Temple Meads - next trains)) which was 31 late at Worle.

Two other techier sites:
Open Train Times has history further back that Real Time Trains (RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website)).
liverail has a more complete dump of what's on the data feeds, but is hard to get to grips with.

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronyms